2 Samuel 11–12

David and Bathsheba

The king stays home from war, sees a woman bathing, and sends for her. What David did to Bathsheba and Uriah, how Nathan confronted him, and what it cost.

The story

It was the time of year when kings go to war, and David didn't. He sent Joab and the army to besiege Rabbah and stayed in Jerusalem. One evening he gets up from his bed, walks on the palace roof, and sees a woman bathing. She's very beautiful. He sends someone to find out who she is, and the answer comes back with two warnings built in: Bathsheba, Eliam's daughter, wife of Uriah the Hittite. Somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, and Uriah is one of his own soldiers.

He sends for her anyway. The text says he sent messengers, and took her, and lay with her, and she went home. Four verbs and no conversation. Then a message comes back the other way: I'm pregnant.

David's fix is to get Uriah home from the front so the child looks like his. Uriah arrives, reports on the war, and is told to go home and relax. He sleeps at the palace door instead, with the servants. Asked why, he says the ark and the army are in tents in a field; how could he go home to eat and drink and sleep with his wife? David keeps him another day, gets him drunk, and he still won't go. The Hittite soldier has more honor than the king of Israel, and the story lets you feel it.

So David writes a letter to Joab and gives it to Uriah to carry. Put Uriah at the front of the hardest fighting, then pull back and let him die. Joab does it. Uriah dies, and some other men with him. Joab sends word and coaches the messenger on how to handle the king's anger about the losses: just tell him Uriah's dead too. David's response is a shrug. The sword eats one man or another. Tell Joab to keep going.

Bathsheba mourns her husband. When the mourning is over, David sends for her again and marries her. She has a son. The chapter ends on one sentence: but the thing David had done displeased the LORD.

God sends Nathan the prophet, and Nathan tells a story. A rich man with huge flocks, a poor man with one little lamb he'd raised like a daughter, that ate from his plate and slept in his arms. A guest arrives and the rich man, unwilling to touch his own animals, takes the poor man's lamb and cooks it. David explodes. That man deserves to die. He'll pay four times over, because he had no pity. Nathan: you are the man.

Then the verdict. You had everything and I'd have given you more. You struck down Uriah with the Ammonites' sword and took his wife. So the sword will not leave your house, and what you did in secret will be done to you in public. David says only: I have sinned against the LORD. Nathan says the LORD has put away his sin, he won't die, but the child will. David fasts and lies on the ground for a week begging for the baby. On the seventh day the child dies. He gets up, washes, worships, and eats. Later Bathsheba has another son, Solomon, and the text says the LORD loved him.

The verse to keep

2 Samuel 12:13WEB

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin. You will not die.

Gen Zsame meaning, your words

David said to Nathan, “I've sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “And the LORD has taken your sin away. You're not going to die.”

No excuses, no ‘but she’. Five words of confession, and forgiveness comes in the same breath. The consequences still come in the next verse.

What it actually means

Start with what the text calls this, because it doesn't call it an affair. Nathan's story is about a powerful man taking something from a man who couldn't stop him. The verbs are David's: he saw, he sent, he took. Bathsheba is given no lines except ‘I'm pregnant’. Whether she had any real choice when the king's men arrived at her door is a question the Bible's own framing pushes you toward, and the honest answer is: what choice does a soldier's wife have against the king? Read it as an abuse of power first, and the rest of the chapter makes sense.

Then the cover-up, which is where it becomes murder. David doesn't kill Uriah in a rage. He does it in writing, by proxy, and then tells his general not to worry about it. The story is told the way it is so that you can't excuse him. The Bible's greatest king, the man after God's own heart, did this. It's in there so that nobody can pretend goodness is a matter of being the right sort of person.

And forgiveness, which the story also refuses to make cheap. David is forgiven, and it says so. He's also told that the sword won't leave his house, and the rest of 2 Samuel is that sentence coming true. The child dies, which is the hardest thing in the passage, and the text doesn't explain it. Forgiveness here means the relationship with God is not over. It doesn't mean nothing happened. Psalm 51, which its heading links to this event, is what David's side of it sounded like. If you need to know that a person can do something unforgivable and still come back, this is the story. If you need to know that coming back doesn't undo the damage, it's the same story.

Worth arguing about

1The chapter starts with ‘David stayed in Jerusalem’. How much of what followed started there?
2Was Bathsheba given a choice? What does the way the story is written suggest?
3David heard Nathan's story and judged the rich man in seconds. Why is it easier to see it in a story than in ourselves?
4He was forgiven and the consequences still came. Can both be true at once?

Read it yourself: 2 Samuel 11–12

World English Bible. 58 verses.

¹At the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. ²At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. ³David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?” ⁴David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. ⁵The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” ⁶David sent to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷When Uriah had come to him, David asked him how Joab did, and how the people fared, and how the war prospered. ⁸David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah departed out of the king’s house, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and didn’t go down to his house. ¹⁰When they had told David, saying, “Uriah didn’t go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you come from a journey? Why didn’t you go down to your house?” ¹¹Uriah said to David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah, are staying in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open field. Shall I then go into my house to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing!” ¹²David said to Uriah, “Stay here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next day. ¹³When David had called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. At evening, he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but didn’t go down to his house. ¹⁴In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. ¹⁵He wrote in the letter, saying, “Send Uriah to the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck and die.” ¹⁶When Joab kept watch on the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew that valiant men were. ¹⁷The men of the city went out and fought with Joab. Some of the people fell, even of David’s servants; and Uriah the Hittite died also. ¹⁸Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war; ¹⁹and he commanded the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling all the things concerning the war to the king, ²⁰it shall be that, if the king’s wrath arise, and he asks you, ‘Why did you go so near to the city to fight? Didn’t you know that they would shoot from the wall? ²¹Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’” ²²So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for. ²³The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. ²⁴The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.” ²⁵Then David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle stronger against the city, and overthrow it.’ Encourage him.” ²⁶When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. ²⁷When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. ^12:1The LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city: the one rich, and the other poor. ²The rich man had very many flocks and herds, ³but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. ⁴A traveler came to the rich man, and he didn’t want to take of his own flock and of his own herd to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” ⁵David’s anger burned hot against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die! ⁶He must restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and because he had no pity!” ⁷Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. ⁸I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that would have been too little, I would have added to you many more such things. ⁹Why have you despised the LORD’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. ¹⁰Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken Uriah the Hittite’s wife to be your wife.’ ¹¹“This is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. ¹²For you did this secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” ¹³David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin. You will not die. ¹⁴However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the LORD’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.” ¹⁵Then Nathan departed to his house. The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he was very sick. ¹⁶David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in and lay all night on the ground. ¹⁷The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth; but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them. ¹⁸On the seventh day, the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him and he didn’t listen to our voice. How will he then harm himself if we tell him that the child is dead?” ¹⁹But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.” ²⁰Then David arose from the earth, and washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothing; and he came into the LORD’s house, and worshiped. Then he came to his own house; and when he requested, they set bread before him and he ate. ²¹Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child was dead, you rose up and ate bread.” ²²He said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ ²³But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” ²⁴David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her, and lay with her. She bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. The LORD loved him; ²⁵and he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and he named him Jedidiah, for the LORD’s sake. ²⁶Now Joab fought against Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and took the royal city. ²⁷Joab sent messengers to David, and said, “I have fought against Rabbah. Yes, I have taken the city of waters. ²⁸Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and encamp against the city and take it; lest I take the city, and it be called by my name.” ²⁹David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah, and fought against it and took it. ³⁰He took the crown of their king from off his head; and its weight was a talent of gold, and in it were precious stones; and it was set on David’s head. He brought a great quantity of plunder out of the city. ³¹He brought out the people who were in it, and put them to work under saws, under iron picks, under axes of iron, and made them go to the brick kiln; and he did so to all the cities of the children of Ammon. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

Whole book: 2 Samuel

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